Guido Nejamkis
02/26/2020 - 9:14
- Clarín.com
- World
Brazil officially confirmed the first case of the new coronavirus in the country and in Latin America. What is known so far? The test with a positive result was performed on a 61-year-old man who lives in São Paulo and was working in the region of Lombardy, in northern Italy, between February 9 and 21.
The Ministry of Health indicated that it is in good health and subjected to isolation at home, with soft signs of the disease: dry cough, fever, cold and sore throat .
The patient was treated Sunday at a headquarters of the Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital, one of the most important health centers in Brazil, where the viral infection was confirmed and the case was notified to the health authorities of the most populous and richest state in the country .
"The patient is in good clinical condition and without the need for hospitalization, remaining in respiratory isolation, which will be maintained for the next 14 days," the hospital said.
These results, considered preliminary, and following the National Contingency Plan, were sent to the Adolfo Lutz Institute national reference laboratory, where a counter-test was carried out, which was also positive , according to medical sources told the main media in Brazil.
The Brazilian Health Minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, will officially release the final result of the counter-test on Wednesday morning, as well as the measures that will be taken to face the progress of the new coronavirus that began in China last year and that has already caused the death of more than 2,700 people.
Official sources in the health area said that the confirmation of the first positive case of coronavirus will not alter the containment strategy adopted to contain the progression of the disease because Brazil has already decreed the state of emergency in public health.
They look for the people who traveled with him
The health authorities of the state of São Paulo and the Agency for Health Surveillance (ANVISA), with the collaboration of the airline in which the patient returned to Brazil, are identifying the people who had contact with him, both in the hospital as on the flight back to the country.
The global alert level due to Covid-19 increased due to the explosion of cases in northern Italy, precisely where the man now subjected to isolation in São Paulo came from.
Brazilian health authorities said Brazil's public health network is prepared to face the progress of the new coronavirus, even if it has a large number of cases.
San Pablo is investigating three other suspicious cases , two in the state capital and one in the interior, in the town of Baurú. These are the three cases of adults, travelers who arrived from a country that is on the watch list of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, which includes Australia, China, South Korea, North Korea, Cambodia, Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Germany, France, Iran and the Arab Emirates.
Brasilia, correspondent